Winding Down - The Last Days of School
The final week of school. The mixed emotions of sadness of seeing the students leave your class, and the bliss of seeing the students leave the class. As an educator, all I can hope is that I have left them with some type of inspiration. As an English educator, I hope they read and would love if they write, but more importantly I want them to interpret their world. I want them to know that they can make a difference for better or for worse. And now the seniors head out "into the real world." I hope that their days here will make them lean towards the former. I have confidence that the staff here has helped create citizens of the world rather than just people to fill the world.
This time of the year makes me think back to my own high school experience. I didn't have the drive I see in many of the students here. I talk to some seniors who are going to be doctors, scientists, nuclear medicine, editors, theatre arts, and on and on. These are dreams I didn't even think existed for me at that age; most of my class wanted a full-time job and dreamed of being a foreman at the already struggling steel mills that made this area.
I graduated in 2004, undecided and unclear. I was an honor student, did well in all classes, but felt I excelled at none. I took a full-time job in a local factory working midnights until deciding to go to college at the age of 21. I now have a pretty clear path, and I'm glad that I can help some of these students realize that sometimes life pulls you in a direction you never expected. Sometimes I wish I would have felt more academically driven in my youth, but now academics are my life, which is something I would have never dreamed.
Take on the challenges Class of 2016!
